White Noise
by Shimegami
Summary: G1 oneshot. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you cannot remember the name of the song. And sometimes, no matter how hard you listen, you cannot hear the melody. Despite this, it's still a noise in your head... :Soundwave character study, slashy:


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**Disclaimer**: I no own Transformers, though I do like occasionally playing God with the toys.  
**Warnings**: Angst, slash, implied mechsmut, giant love triangle. Eat your heart out, Days Of Our Lives.

The idea latched into my head and would not let go. Soundwave character study. StarscreamxSoundwave, one-sided SoundwavexMegatron, MegatronxStarscream, and StarscreamxOptimus Prime. Skyfire and Jazz are in the background, jealous.

The Cassetticons, sadly, do not feature majorly in this. I love the little buggers too, but there's more to Soundwave than the Cassettes, and that's what I wanted to explore.

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**White Noise  
**

He was proud of his emotionless status, because no one knew how hard he had worked to attain it. He was far from emotionless, but he managed to appear so all the same.

A communications officer was not meant to be in any position of command. Their position was usually restricted to sitting in front of a console, monitoring base communications, trying to hack into and decipher enemy codes, and sending their Cassettes to gather more information to aid them. The normal arrangement for a Cybertronian army was the Supreme Commander, the Air Commander as his second, and the Special Operations commander as his third. As unorthodox as this entire war was, it was unsurprising that both sides had to improvise in their officers.

The Autobots had the easy decision - at the beginning, they'd had no flying units, and so they simply filled the Second-In-Command position with that tactician of theirs. Simple, but it got the job done, like the Autobots themselves.

Megatron's decision had been a little harder.

The Decepticons had practically no Special Operations force to speak of. Most of the soldiers in the army tended to be of the "if it moves, blow it up" school of operation, and this left subtler schemes out of the question. The Autobots had an entire army of intelligence-geared mechs, it seemed, what with that saboteur as the head, that holograms specialist, the invisible spy...even the little yellow one was a part of that unit, and was surprisingly good at his job.

Soundwave often found that he and his Cassettes were the entire Special Operations force of the Decepticon army. And his loyalty to Megatron was unwavering. Being the only one halfway qualified - and to balance out Starscream's traitorous nature - Soundwave had been pulled from his small communications console to sit behind a much larger one.

He was not cut out for such a position, but he would be slagged if he allowed himself to fall back down. The promotion had served his goal, to get closer to Megatron any way possible. And now he was the silver mech's most trusted advisor, because Starscream couldn't be trusted to advise Megatron a route out of a paper bag without backstabbing him five times, and then setting the bag on fire for good measure.

It had brought him closer to Megatron, and it had made him realize how much farther away he'd fallen with the promotion.

Third-in-command had no real glory, aside from being able to lord over all Decepticons aside from Starscream and Megatron himself. The job was insufferingly boring, mainly because he spent most of his days sitting at his larger console, listening to bored Seekers report on their boring surroundings. Half of the patrol time was usually spent trying to prevent one Seeker or another from crashing themselves for amusement - were all fliers masochistic? The thought bore consideration.

He was a communications officer, a telepath, making his position even worse as he became absorbed in the thoughts of the Decepticon Elite. And it made him wish he was as emotionless as his facade made him appear to be. He knew everything that motivated his leader and the Air Commander. And it made him realize how much of a space-filler he was. He had been promoted to fill a space. Fill it competently, mind you, but just fill it nonetheless.

Therefore, it was only he who knew of the absolutely secret and nearly subconscious longing Starscream had for the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime. Soundwave was not certain when, how, or why it had started, but it existed nonetheless. Only the Seeker's stubborn pride and wish to lead the Decepticons - and his absolute disdain of most of the Autobots - kept Starscream from defecting right then and there. It was a delicate situation, and Soundwave was rather certain that one day it would just degrade, and Starscream really would defect right there, Decepticons and Megatron be damned, or he'd suffer a massive meltdown and go more insane than he already was.

This had forced Soundwave to act. The Seeker was a valuable Decepticon resource. They could not afford losing him, especially to the enemy side.

He trailed a hand over the delicate wings, tracing the paintjob as their owner remained deep in recharge. This...this strange closeness was the only way Soundwave could keep a handle on the volatile flier, and he would continue to do so as long as Starscream was needed. Megatron needed his Air Commander, and Soundwave would do his best to ensure that he had him.

The happiness that he was doing something to help Megatron was the only thing that kept Soundwave from murdering Starscream right there in recharge. He hated the Seeker. He held the title of being the only mech Soundwave had ever envied.

Being a telepath had its disadvantages. It let him know just how much Megatron really _did_ need the screechy, insufferable flier. His commander was completely and absolutely in love with the fool, though Soundwave suspected that he either had not yet realized this fact, or denied it completely.

Starscream had everything Soundwave had ever wanted. Sheer power. A position he had earned by skill and merit alone. Megatron's attentions.

He had all of this, and did not realize this. He was so greedy, he only clawed for more, not knowing that some mechs would gladly give half their bodies to just taste his power for a day. He had all he wanted, and he threw it back in Megatron's face, as if it wasn't good enough.

He hated the fact that he had been promoted. He'd been so pleased, at first, to be plucked from obscurity to be placed in a positon where he might actually gain Megatron's attentions, but soon it had made him realize how hopeless his situation was. it would have been better to have stayed away, to have stayed oblivious. The longing would have still been there, but the hope of being more would have never crossed his processors. He'd known his place back then. But he'd been promoted, and had been thrown right back into place. The hope would never be realized, but neither would it die now that it had been born.

Sometimes he prayed to Primus that an Autobot would get a lucky hit in and permanently deactivate him next battle, but he kept those thoughts hidden. He did not want to upset his Cassettes, his little ones. They were the only source of cheer he had left, and he would not give them up for anything. But there were some things they should not know.

It was best to erase it. Forget everything and just become the emotionless being everyone thought him to be.

If only it were as easy as erasing the memories of his Cassettes when they saw him hunched over in a moment of weakness.

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They were in a battle, but they were always in a battle, it seemed. Long days were often spent planning the next raid or attack, but the peaceful quality of those days - and the incessant droning of Ramjet threatening to crash into some skyscrapers if something interesting didn't happen soon on his patrol - tended to make them blend into one big blur, one that seemed to pass far faster than it had gone at the time.

Starscream roared overhead, voice screeching out insults at Prime as he fired upon the Autobot leader. Only Soundwave knew how much Starscream hated doing it, how the Seeker alternately longed for and hated Prime. Only Soundwave knew of how much Starscream wanted that voice and those hands to touch him gently, to caress him and praise him and be the leader Megatron never was to him.

Megatron was in Soundwave's own hands, and he obediently aimed and fired his leader's gun form at the nearest targets, waiting for Prime to be drawn out so they could battle one-on-one. Only Soundwave knew how Megatron always seemed to keep one sensor on the sky, keeping watch on the red and white jet in the sky. Only Soundwave sensed the small thrill the fiery tantrum sent through his leader.

Soon, he had to let go of his leader, stepping back to let Megatron and Prime clash. And only Soundwave knew how irrationally ignored and abandoned that made him feel. Soundwave was a background fixture to Megatron - one the silver mech always trusted to be there, that would never betray him, but never thought to consider as anything more.

Only Soundwave knew all of this, and he had lost count of the times he wished he didn't.

He retreated back a ways. He was not meant to fight, really, and his Cassettes were already elsewhere, engulfed in the battle. Best to just step back and wait for something to do.

He stumbled across Prime's own Third-In-Command behind a pile of rubble.

They stared at each other for a moment, weapons drawn in a tense moment, but not firing. Jazz's mouth was not covered like Soundwave's, allowing other mechs to at least guess his emotions at his smiles or frowns, but his visor left his optics as unfathomly unreadable as Soundwave's own. He, unlike Soundwave, was suited to his position as head of Special Ops.

He did not allow himself to consciously admit it, but he was jealous of this mech, too. And yet, he did not hate him as he did Starscream.

The music in this one's head was soothing, in a way. It almost made Soundwave not want to kill him. He liked listening to it.

A string of enraged gibberish sounded in Soundwave's mind - Starscream had been cornered by that giant white jet, Skyfire. The Seeker still took his defection personally, and was still hurt by the loss of his old friend. He covered this up in rage in typical Starscream fashion. Skyfire had a more resigned mind - he, too, mourned the loss of his friend, but he felt he was right and would not allow Starscream to hurt his new friends. And yet, buried beneath all that, was still the longing. Starscream had purged himself of the old feelings, but the white scientist still could not.

So much emotion, all around them. Soundwave hated it, but he was as caught up in it as anyone else.

It was times like this that Soundwave found himself irrationally wishing that the Unmaker himself would just come and wipe them and their silly romantic drama all out. This was pathetic.

White armor glinted in the sun as its owner shifted, and Soundwave refocused his attentions on the mech in front of him. Jazz was smirking, a kind of half-smile that seemed both cocky and somehow sad at the same time. And, through the music, Soundwave caught a faint wisp of regret and, strangely, longing. As if he regretted Soundwave being on the wrong end of his blaster rifle.

"Sorry t'say, Mr. Soundwave, but I've got a friend in a small bind. We'll hafta chat later."

With that, the saboteur activated his "light show" weapon, toning up the brightness to near-unbearable levels - Soundwave had barely enough time to offline his optics to prevent damage - and by the time the light had faded, the mech was gone.

He was left standing there, feeling almost as if he had just missed out on gaining something. What, he did not know, but the feeling persisted.

Soundwave merely allowed himself to shake his head in a moment of weakness, before turning to go collect his leader as Megatron sounded the retreat.

If he drowned himself in the mental white noise of the base long enough, perhaps he could erase the emotions once and for all.

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I have absolutely no idea where this came from. It just happened. To be honest, I didn't pull it off the way I wanted, but I was getting tired of writing.

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End file.
